Mar 10

Acupuncture and chemotherapy

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Acupuncture has made cancer patients lessen the pain and discomfort from chemotherapy.

It’s the last thing a child wants — a needle, actually multiple needles. But a young cancer patient says it’s exactly the shot she needs to get through treatment.

Kahla Harper, Cancer Patient: “The first couple of times, you don’t want to do it at all.”

Kahla Harper recalls the first time she went through chemotherapy.

Paul Kent, Pediatric Oncologist, Rush University Medical Center: “In general, kids handle it, chemotherapy and radiation, better than adults on the one hand. On the other hand, we give much higher doses than our adult counterparts and much more intense therapies.”

And it takes a toll … in the form of anxiety, nausea and fatigue. Then after months of treatment Kahla’s bone cancer spread to her lungs. Now she needs more chemo. But this time doctors suggested something new.

Kahla Harper: “Get poked and prodded with enough so it was like, now I’m gonna volunteer myself to get poked and prodded.”

But after a little prodding and some educating, Kahla decided to try acupuncture.

Kahla Harper: “I didn’t jump off the table like I thought I would.”

Side effects of cancer treatment are the main reason adults run away. Acupuncture is proven in studies to help ease the experience. So now at Rush University Medical Center, they are trying it on kids.

Angela Johnson, Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Rush Cancer Integrative Medicine Program: “Without a doubt acupuncture, at the very least, helps patients feel more relaxed, less stressed and less anxious.”

Kahla Harper: “I felt really good afterwards. I can’t explain the feeling but it was kinda like ‘whooo.’ Like you feel not so stressed out, not so worried about things.”

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Mar 09

TCM and infertility

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Traditional Chinese medicine has helped many infertile couples conceive and with it, the joy that comes from having a baby!

Baby joy via TCM

SOME couples struggle to conceive, especially when infertility might be an underlying problem.

And besides undergoing Western fertility treatments, some are turning to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for help.

TCM treatments include herbal remedies and acupuncture, which are meant to bring the body into balance and thus facilitate conception.

But those who turn to TCM should know that TCM isn’t a quick fix, said physician Loh Kim Gek, 55.

As with Western medicine, a substantial amount of time and patience may be required before a couple sees a successful result.

With TCM, couples need to undergo at least nine to 12 months of consistent treatment, said Ms Loh, who is one of four physicians at the fertility unit in free clinic Singapore Thong Chai Medical Institution.

Ms Loh, who has more than 20 years of experience, added: “I feel a sense of satisfaction when my patients bring along their babies to meet me. It makes me very happy.”

She has helped about 30 per cent of some 900 couples to conceive.

She said that the success rate could have been as high as 50 per cent if some of those couples had stuck to their treatment without giving up halfway.

Although women are traditionally blamed for fertility problems, Ms Loh said that, in seven out of 10 cases, the problem actually lies with the male.

She will give a talk on Saturday to explain how TCM can help to boost fertility, and how one can improve one’s constitution. my paper gets her to answer some questions from readers.

Why would TCM be better than Western medicine in fertility treatments?

MS JOEY GWEE, 25

Ms Loh: TCM treatment for gynaecological problems has a long history in China, and has proved to be effective.

To me, TCM and Western medicine serve complementary needs. TCM treats the root problem, while Western medicine tackles the symptoms.

For instance, if you have ovulation problems or problems with the quality of your ovaries, TCM treatment – which comprises Chinese medicine as well as acupuncture – can improve the function of the ovaries. TCM can also help strengthen men’s sperm to enable a higher chance of conception.

But if you have problems such as a blockage in your fallopian tube due to ovarian cysts, then I would recommend Western treatment to remove them. My wife and I have been trying to have a baby for two years.

What can we do to improve our chances of conceiving?

MR J. Y. QUEK, 31

Ms Loh: Firstly, you should learn how to be free of worry. When people are anxious, it will affect the quality of a woman’s ovaries and the effectiveness of sperm. In my talk, I will share some simple methods for relieving stress.

Secondly, you need to build up your constitution and prevent development of illnesses. Illnesses during the ovulation period can greatly affect conception.

You can improve your general health by drinking teas, such as chrysanthemum and wolfberry tea, boiled dried longan, American ginseng and red dates, or wolfberry and lily tea with some brown sugar. But do consult your TCM physician to see if these are suitable for your condition, and seek treatment as soon as possible.

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Mar 08

How to improve blood circulation

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This article offers useful suggestions to enhance poor blood circulation and regulate qi.

Ways to regulate qi and blood to handle poor blood circulation.

THE human body cannot function without blood. Not only is blood responsible for transporting oxygen and nutrients to each of the trillions of cells in the body, it is also responsible for carrying toxins and waste out of the body. Blood also plays a vital role in stabilising body temperature and acidity (pH).

Poor blood circulation can leado various health conditions, from muscle spasms, poor immunity, sluggish memory, lack of stamina, and circulatory disorders such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis, to serious ailments such as heart attack and stroke.

Since its early beginnings, traditional chinese medicinal practice has recognised the importance of blood circulation to overall good health. In this third installation of a four-part series, I’ll share with you the various Chinese medicinal herbs that can improve blood circulation.

Traditional Chinese medicinal prescriptions compose of herbs that treat blood “troubles” and have the effect of regulating qi and blood to treat poor blood circulation.

Although a very common condition, poor blood circulation is wide in scope and complexity. The methods of treating poor blood circulation include enriching the blood and promoting blood circulation to remove blood stasis.

Herbs that improve blood circulation are categorised by four general functions:

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Mar 07

Acupuncture can ease pain from breast cancer treatment

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Acupuncture can greatly reduce pain from breast cancer treatment, which can be grueling.

U.S. researchers say acupuncture may relieve joint pain often accompanying breast cancer treatment.

Researchers at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and colleagues found post-menopausal women being treated with aromatase inhibitor therapy for hormone-receptor-positive early breast cancer reporting joint pain who received acupuncture had significant lessening of pain.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also found the women treated with acupuncture had overall physical well-being improve and the 20 percent also taking pain medications reported no longer needing them. No such improvements were reported by controls.

“Since aromatase inhibitors have become an increasingly popular treatment option for some breast cancer patients, we aimed to find a non-drug option to manage the joint issues they often create, thereby improving quality of life and reducing the likelihood that patients would discontinue this potentially life-saving treatment,” study senior author Dr. Dawn Hershman said in a statement.

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Mar 06

Restore your energy and vitality

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A prominent New York City doctor offers advice on how to live a more balanced life full with energy and Chinese medicine should be part of that balanced life!

HuffPost Living’s Sleep Challenge 2010 gave us a lot of great insights as to the importance of sleep, tips on how to experience better quality and quantity of sleep, and the challenges and obstacles that we face when trying to improve our sleep. Many commenters revealed how they experience high stress and low energy throughout the day, as well as having difficulty getting quality sleep at night.

Speaking of low energy, lucky winner of HuffPost Living’s Total Energy Makeover, Marissa Campise, has a whole team of health experts helping her to restore her lost energy. Frank Lipman, M.D., an integrative physician, is the ideal medical component of Marissa’s team.

Dr. Lipman has a special interest in helping the exhausted regain their vitality. In fact, he wrote a book about it called Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again (previously known as Spent). In his bestselling book, Dr. Lipman offers readers 42 ways to put spring back into their step.

Originally from South Africa, Dr. Lipman now practices in New York City, where he is the Director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center. In his Manhattan practice, he often works with exhausted New Yorkers. Dr. Lipman is a physician with over 30 years of experience, who incorporates nutrition, functional medicine, and Eastern modalities such as acupuncture and Chinese herbs. In a recent interview, Dr. Lipman shared some of his insights that have helped his patients improve their energy and vitality.

PF: Where did you get the inspiration for the book Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living?

FL: I see so many people who are exhausted and running on empty, feeling completely “spent.” They often come in seeking a cure for their tennis elbow or headaches or menopausal symptoms or irritable bowel syndrome or some other condition, but what I noticed was that many of these people were simply exhausted. Some would mention it, but most didn’t say anything, thinking it was just normal to feel that way in New York.

I wanted to share my many years of clinical experience, what I had seen work in my practice with a larger audience. So I wrote the book and divided it into 42 daily beats, basically 42 different tips that anyone can start incorporating into their lives and feel better. With each daily beat, I incorporated a sleep beat or sleep tip because so many people have sleep issues.

PF: Your dedication in the book begins with: “To all those out of rhythm who are trying to find their beat.” How did you get interested in people’s rhythms?

FL: When I started thinking about why there was this epidemic of exhaustion, I realized that the only time in my 30 years as a physician that I never saw patients who were exhausted was when I worked in a rural tribal area in South Africa. I was seeing diseases symptomatic of poverty and malnutrition, but not the same types of problems I see today in New York City or when I worked in urban areas in South Africa. It was the only time I could remember where patients did not come in complaining of fatigue, insomnia, depression, migraines or various aches and pains. There was no electricity, indoor heating, or refrigeration in those rural areas 29 years ago when I worked there. They went to bed when it got dark, they arose with the sun, they ate whatever foods were available in season. They lived in accordance with the cycles and rhythms of nature…they had to.

Then I thought about what I had learned in Chinese Medicine that we humans are microcosms of nature, a smaller universe per se and are affected by its cycles. So I looked to see if there was any scientific research on health and rhythms and lo and behold I discovered Chronobiology (the study of circadian rhythms and internal body clocks). A circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle in the physiological processes of most life on Earth, including humans (reflecting the amount of time it takes for the Earth to complete a rotation). For instance, our digestion and hormones are two physiological processes that have circadian rhythms.

Then I discovered a fantastic book, Making Waves by Roger Lewin, about the work of medical maverick Dr. Irving Dardick. Dr. Dardick worked with Olympic athletes – but he got ostracized back in the 1990s when claiming that he could cure diseases with intervals. When I read that book, everything started falling into place. I realized how nobody’s talking about rhythm – people talk about stress and diet, but not rhythm. It was so obvious as we live with day and night, the main rhythm we are exposed to, and just take it for granted. Over time, I weaved this philosophy of rhythm of health into what I do in my practice.

Mar 05

Acupuncture and weight loss

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The use of acupuncture has gone beyond the treatment of aches and pain; TCM practioners are using acupuncture to other areas, such as weight loss.

To say that anything is new with acupuncture is to discount its thousands-year-old history. But as more physicians seek training in the ancient practice, they also are expanding its use beyond the relief of pain and stress.
Every few weeks Lisa Schiff Dubinsky gets auricular acupuncture treatments to help with weight loss. Dr. Tara McElroy places needles at several points in Schiff Dubinsky’s ear to allow vital energy to flow and stimulate neural pathways.

Then Schiff Dubinsky, an actress and vocalist who lives in Shaker Heights, lies still in a darkened room with her eyes closed for 25 minutes.

She says she has lost about 30 pounds since beginning her treatment.

“It helps with cravings and suppression of appetite,” she said. “It’s like [the acupuncture] is drawing all of these things into some kind of calmness.”

Schiff Dubinsky is no stranger to the benefits of acupuncture; she previously used it to relieve chronic neck pain. But she wasn’t comfortable with the practitioner and stopped going.

Two years ago, she spotted some literature on acupuncture at the Cleveland Clinic’s Beachwood offices and decided to give it a try again. What attracted her this time was that the acupuncturist was a physician.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the practice was first embraced in the United States. Physicians began integrating acupuncture into their medical practices in the 1980s, as they realized alternative therapies could fill gaps in Western medicine.

While most of the interest has been among physicians on the East and West coasts, more medical acupuncturists are popping up in Northeast Ohio and surrounding areas.

McElroy, an OB-GYN with the Clinic, says she was frustrated by the lack of resources to treat common complaints among her patients — decreased libido, weight gain and menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, anxiety and insomnia.

“I thought that if there was something that I could do, that would just be one more piece of the puzzle to offer,” she says

McElroy turned to the Academy of Pain Research in San Francisco, which offers courses in acupuncture and auricular therapy designed specifically for physicians. Her studies, a combination of distance learning and two 10-day hands-on sessions, spanned one year.

McElroy treats about four patients each week with acupuncture; she hopes to increase that number.

McElroy is not the only person at the Clinic who performs acupuncture. A full-time acupuncturist and six other accredited acupuncturists work under contract with the Clinic at the Center for Integrative Medicine.

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Mar 04

Acupuncture and cancer care

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Acupuncture is emerging to have a critical role in the care of cancer patients, according to a prominent US doctor.

Acupuncture, massage and other alternative therapies have a place in cancer care, a U.S. doctor says.

Gynecologic oncologist Dr. Julian Schink of Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University says offering integrative oncology services as well as counseling and stress management are part of their larger aim of providing for cancer patients’ needs from every angle.

“When a patient is diagnosed with cancer many of them want to fully participate in their recovery, but don’t know where to begin. This program gives them control over their treatment,” Schink says in a statement.

Integrative oncology services — offered by Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group’s Center for Integrative Medicine and Wellness include acupuncture, massage, energy healing and naturopathic medicine.

“Our goal is to treat the whole person, not just their illness,” Dr. Melinda Ring, medical director of the Center for Integrative Medicine and Wellness, says. “Research suggests that a holistic approach can alleviate stress and anxiety, as well as the physical pain and discomfort patients often experience while undergoing cancer treatments by activating the body’s innate healing process.”

Schink points out integrative oncology services help manage the side effects associated with conventional therapies that would otherwise cause patients to end or curtail treatments prematurely.

Mar 03

Holistic insurance coverage offered in Oregon

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Clear One Health Plans is introducing a health insurance option that focuses on holistic and natural health. This is good news for Oregon residents who utilizes alternative therapy.

Clear One Health Plans has introduced what may be Oregon’s first health insurance option that focuses on holistic and natural health.

Bend-based Clear One’s Natural Health Plan offers members a combination of holistic medicine along with traditional services, including hospital, maternity, prescription and emergency coverage. It covers naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, massage therapy and other forms of alternative medicine.

Coverage is available statewide for individuals.

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Mar 03

Taiwanese fungus can reduce inflammation

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A study has identified a Taiwanese fungus as having anti-inflammatory effect on patients.

A fungus widely used in folk medicine in Taiwan – Taiwanofungus camphoratus – has been proven to contain an anti-inflammatory compound whether it grows in the wild or is cultivated, a local research team said Monday.
David Sheng-Yang Wang, an associate professor in National Chung Hsing University’s Department of Forestry and the head of the team, unveiled the results of the study at a news conference that was also attended by university president Shaw Jei-fu.

The study was also recently published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Though T. camphoratus contains some 100 components, the team was able to prove that the fungus, which can only be found in the wild growing on the inner bark of a local camphor tree called Cinnamomum kanehirai, has anti-inflammatory properties through its bioactive compound antrocamphin A.

The study also found that the same amount of antrocamphin A can be derived from T. camphoratus after being cultivated for nine months, Wang said.

In isolating the antrocamphin A compound, the study only solidified the medical credentials of the fungus, which currently sells for up to NT$500,000 per kilo when found in the wild.

It has long been prized in folk medicine for treating liver cancer, food and drug intoxications, abdominal pains and hypertension, but Wang cautioned that because there are no standards used to verify the quality of the fungus sold in Taiwan, big discrepancies exist in the price and quality available.

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Mar 02

Acupuncture in North Carolina

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Acupuncture is making its way into the everyday lives of the great state of North Carolina!

The room is dim, peaceful. Soothing music plays in the background, but otherwise all is silent. You lie, sheathed in a sheet, on a padded table, with thin metal needles studding multiple parts of your body a proverbial pincushion. And youve never been more relaxed in your life.

If this sounds familiar, chances are youve experienced the ancient art of acupuncture, which originated in Asia thousands of years ago and has been used in the United States for about two centuries. In the state of North Carolina, acupunctures history is briefer at least officially. Just ask Page Paterson, who was there at the very beginning.

License 001

“When I first went to school, there was no law in North Carolina about it,” says Paterson, a licensed acupuncturist who holds a masters in acupuncture and currently operates out of the Wilmington Acupuncture and Counseling Center. “The acupuncturists across the state went to the attorney general, who told us to get a license in another state. When theres enough of you, he said, you can lobby.”

So it came to be that in 1989, Paterson opened up a practice jointly in Wilmington and in Chapel Hill. “There was no other acupuncturist here; in Chapel Hill, I joined an existing practice. I worked two days a week in Chapel Hill,” Paterson says. She built her Wilmington clientele by giving talks at the Sun and Moon bookstore, no longer in operation, and by word of mouth. “In five years, I was busy enough that I sold my practice in Chapel Hill.”

Paterson wasnt alone. Across the state, an ever-growing group of physicians wanted to use homeopathy in their practice, and an increasing number of acupuncturists were calling North Carolina home. The time had come to lobby for licensure, and, as luck would have it, the process took just one year. In 1994, Page Paterson became the very first acupuncturist licensed in the state of North Carolina, a distinction to which the framed certificate on her office wall, with its distinctive “001,” attests. “We wrote a good law,” she says, smiling.

That year, Paterson joined an elite group of six other individuals who received their acupuncture licenses. Today, according to the Community Acupuncture Network (CAN), around 400 licensed acupuncturists reside in the Tarheel State. Seventeen of them call Wilmington home (source: North Carolina Acupuncture Licensing Board). While our states acupuncturists constitute a mere fraction of the 27,965 U.S. licensees (as of July 2009), its a far cry from the seven pioneers who successfully lobbied for licensure sixteen years ago.

The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the United States acceptance of acupuncture as a complementary treatment method for all types of ailments, including fibromyalgia, migraines, infertility, cancer pain, asthma, drug addiction, osteoarthritis, and more. In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed acupuncture needles from their “experimental medical device” list. The U.S. Department of Education now recognizes the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, which has links to approximately 50 acupuncture schools. Multiple sources, including the National Institute of Health, have conducted studies and summits on the techniques efficacy and effectiveness.

Despite these developments, theres still a long way to go. “If youre thinking of doing acupuncture, be sure you go to a licensed acupuncturist. In North Carolina, chiropractors and doctors can do acupuncture without training for it specifically, and its covered by insurance,” Paterson warns. Insurance coverage or the lack of it can be a significant impediment to receiving acupuncture treatment. “Progress Energy covers acupuncture, and so do a few other companies. But Blue Cross Blue Shield NC isnt required to cover it,” she explains. Instead of traditional insurance coverage, they offer acupuncturists a compromise: lower your rates for our customers, and well include you on our list of providers. Its a compromise that Paterson and others like her, including local acupuncturist Daerr Reid of East Coast Acupuncture cant afford to make.

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